Stringy, juicy green cud slid down her whisker.
sticky, milky cud came off Jane Austen
Where I laid my hand...

These twigs you sent, they cannot have been so beautiful
when you sent them. It’s getting colder.
These vaporous mornings are started, we ride

the train to Rhinecliff & walk from the station
to Old Post Rd, cut the screen on Emma’s house, go
in the window, down to the plush basement rug
& watch 3/4 of The Third Man.

Outside, the big blue dahlias,
tall gladiolas shout their red
flaw into the mist. The urban music
of the summer ends in dissonance, I live

my private life inside…stupid, bare-ass, as
all down the Amtrak line I listen to the music of my deaf
VANITAS, “dressed in your worldly pride.”
Then I get bored & I have to admit it I want to go
to the beginning again.

Amtrak with its dim brown seats &
pomegranate leather, the barroom car pretzel gold,
Old Cordovan tapestries, where light
intrudes in the corridor. Must we

reproduce again the tireless,
touching works that spoke, though we may have missed it,
of the duty to be healthy & do
something? I can already understand